New Zealand is home to many extreme sports, including bungee jumping and zorbing, which were both invented there. So, no tour of New Zealand would be complete without some sort of adrenaline-pumping activity. Since Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world, it seemed fitting to do something adventurous while we were there.
We chose to go tandem paragliding with G Force Paragliding, which operates from the top of the Skyline Gondola. The gondola was actually closed for maintenance, so our pilots picked us up from the base of the gondola and we drove up the mountain in a 4x4 vehicle that they borrowed from one of the many Lord of the Rings tour operators nearby.
In general the weather was pretty yucky while we were in New Zealand, so we were lucky that our paragliding adventure happened on one of the clearest days of our trip. The scenery around Queenstown is incredible (apologies to Sandy and Teresa - apparently it was so cloudy when they were there that they couldn't even see the mountains), and I can definitely see why it is a tourist hot spot.
Our pilots took photos and videos of us while we were up in the air. This week's picture is from Angela's flight. Unfortunately, Angela's pilot's camera was misbehaving, and it only recorded a few seconds worth of video. I used some of my video editing skills (such as they are) to splice together a little paragliding adventure video based on my pilot's video footage, plus the two short clips that Angela's pilot managed to get. The audio was originally just a lot of wind noise, so I decided to replace it with some music I had lying around on my hard drive. The soundtrack is a clip from a live performance that my friend Billy Biggs did with his electronica group "Betacam SP" back in 2002.
Technical details: This image was taken by G Force Paragliding with a Samsung L74 at 5mm, ISO 80, f/1, for 1/108th of a second.
Sweet!-- Emily at 9:01pm, Wednesday June 10, 2009 EST
Very cool, and a great picture too!-- Aravind at 11:18pm, Wednesday June 10, 2009 EST
It's amazing what can be done with a camera on a stick! :)-- Michael at 11:34pm, Wednesday June 10, 2009 EST
Wow! Angela, you definately have your Dad's sense of adventure! I held my breath the whole time watching the both of you on video, and what a view! Keep those pictures coming Mike.8-)-- Jeannie at 11:06am, Thursday June 11, 2009 EST
That's an awesome video! Looks like an incredible experience.-- Sue at 4:04pm, Thursday June 11, 2009 EST
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